I lost a day this week. I think it was Tuesday. I was shocked to find Sunday papers this morning. The pain killers have been gone all week so I guess I have only myself to blame. I hope this losing a day thing isn’t a trend.

Yesterday I didn’t use my walker all day long. I limped and walked a bit bent, but I survived the day. This morning the pain woke me up, but I put my foot down, proverbially would work here too, and managed to massage most of the pain away. Undaunted, I made my way to the kitchen still walkerless. It hurt but it hurt less than I expected. I think I’m well on my way down the yellow brick road.

The smoke detector is chirping, and I can’t reach it. I have a good step ladder, but this is not the time. I’d probably break my leg, my good leg. Ordinarily I’d have yanked my hair out by now from the constant chirping, but I decided to think of the chirping as a bird’s song, a Christmas bird. Okay, I admit it. I must be losing my mind. What is that? A Christmas bird? Come on! Start complaining, even cursing! I swear ( the nice one, the oath one, not my usual) I must have been hypnotized by all those Hallmark movies.

Some family pictures I have are from Christmas 1953, the year I was six. In one of the pictures, I was innocently playing with the doll I had gotten (I think it was a Ginny Doll) while my brother was shooting me in the back with the gun he’d gotten for Christmas (High Noon would be a great song for this portion), and he’s wearing his gun belt, over his pajamas. My mother is dressed to the nines as this was not long after midnight mass. This early opening happened for many years as my grandparents always wanted to be there when we opened our presents. Later, when I was older, I wondered why they just didn’t come in the morning. Maybe they preferred us almost comatose from sleep (editorial comment).

It was torture to see my toys, play with them a while then be sent back to bed. I can’t imagine how long it took me to go back to sleep. I know I sneaked downstairs quite a few times and played with my toys until it was light outside then I’d sneak back to bed and happily fall asleep.